I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt in that the link where he writes "thug" is to an article that has this line: "We" hear it only through official s

I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt in that the link where he writes "thug" is to an article that has this line: "We" hear it only through official statements, often dismissing local concerns, painting them as looters, thugs, troublemakers. So I don't think he was speaking from his point of view but from how it might have been presented to a common person.